


sympathy

by mewantcandy



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I don't know, Introspection, i think, this is a ventfic take it as you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewantcandy/pseuds/mewantcandy
Summary: Sympathy for the Angel is Tsuzuru's most popular work.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	sympathy

Tsuzuru loves writing.

He spends time and care into writing, making sure each word comes out exactly as it should. There’s a lot of thought to be put in writing scripts, a lot of considerations that other writers wouldn’t think of. He has to think about how each word, each action, translates to the actors onstage.

It’s hard work, but it’s fulfilling. He loves the audience’s reaction to the twists and turns, the little ad-libs by the actors that give a different sort of twist to each showing. He loves hearing about how this scene moved them to tears, or that scene made them laugh so hard they couldn’t breathe.

It’s one of his favorite parts of writing, really. The audience’s gasps when the twist kicks in, or the actors’ words of praise when they read through it for the first time. There’s a little burst of dopamine in his brain when he receives their reactions. It makes him feel as though he’s written something worth reacting to, something that can touch the people who read it, and in his opinion, that is a writer’s ideal.

When he asks, people tend to cite Sympathy for the Angel as their favorite work of his. It makes them cry, usually. Tsuzuru has heard more than one joking threat about how they audience members would steal his kneecaps for making them cry. It’s sentimental and full of love, they tell him. And it’s emotional, and strong, and it’s something they could watch over and over again without getting bored of.

Tsuzuru loves hearing it. He loves to listen to stories of people who have watched it and cried, of people who felt touched and continue to talk about it. He loves when Kazunari sends him posts of people who loved his work so much that they create art of it, write fanfiction of it, cosplay as the characters from it. He feels like his work is something to be proud of.

But at the same time, Tsuzuru resents it.

There’s an ugly feeling rearing its head at the back of his heart. He should be happy that his writing is something that people admire, something that people think about and cry over, but instead that happiness is tainted with something bitter.

Sympathy for the Angel was his fourth play. Since then, he’s written countless plays for Mankai. Troupe plays, mixed plays, even collaborations with different theater troupes on Veludo Way. He’s pushing forty full-length plays and so many days and weeks and months of time and effort spent making sure each one is something worth watching.

And yet people still seem to prefer his earliest works. The ones he looks back at and sees the flaws and the holes in. The ones that are good, while his recent works are better. The ones he wrote in a week, two weeks, rather than the ones he’s fleshed out and painstakingly created over months.

It leaves him with a tight feeling in his chest, and a bitter taste in his mouth, as guilt settles into his stomach and he feels like screaming or crying or both or neither, because nothing Tsuzuru does from this point will ever surpass what he’s already done.

Tsuzuru loves writing.

He loves the work he’s put time and effort in, loves the things he’s created and put out into the world for people to see.

He wonders if that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> idk, i'm on twitter if you want to talk, link in profile.
> 
> EDIT: it's been 2 days and we're at 100 hits and i wrote this in one sitting at 8 pm on a friday evening in one go and i think there's irony in this. /lh


End file.
